Patch 4.2: Lord Rhyolith PTR Strategies and Preview

Today on PTR we got some time with the newly renamed Lord Rhyolith. He's a well-tuned encounter and one we preferred to yesterday's boss, Beth'tilac. Some of his mechanics were refreshing, particularly in the way you actually controlled him, and we managed to test both phases of the fight thoroughly. If you've done Супремус or Кологарн, you'll find some elements from those bosses borrowed and rehashed with Lord Rhyolith.

Phase one starts out different from most fights as there is no need to tank him. He ambles around slowly and does not attack directly; instead, the real threat is where he intends to walk. Consequently, you'll need to steer him where you want him to path by attacking his left and right legs--applying DPS to the leg in which direction you want him to turn. We found it best to only have two or three melee on him at most communicating on ventrilo where they wanted him to turn and calling out switches. There is also a bar on the screen the indicates how much in the respective direction Rhyolith will be turning to help you out.

Your immediate goal in steering him is to make sure that he stays on the island itself; if he gets to close to the edges, he'll begin to drink the surrounding lava which results in potentially deadly raid damage from .

Your secondary goal is to make sure that he is being led in the path of active volcanoes that crop up over time. Each time he walks over one, he will stomp on it, which removes stacks of and gives him instead. He starts the fight with 80 stacks of Obsidan Armor and the goal is to remove them all so you can DPS him down to trigger phase two. Don't worry much about Molten Armor he gains in exchange as he loses a stack whenever he casts a spell or summons an add.

As he is being steered around successfully in phase one, the ranged DPS, healers, and the tank handle the adds he summons. Lord Rhyolith spawns two types of adds: Fragments of Rhyolith and Sparks. He spawns these in an alternating pattern so you will never have two types of adds up at the same time, making this a single tank fight. Fragments begin with a debuff called Meltdown. When it expires, it does their remaining HP as AoE damage to the entire raid. As such, it's best to just AoE them down with ranged.

The other adds hit harder; a single Spark spawned each time with an Immolation aura, ticking for a base 10,000 fire damage to those within its range. The tank would pull it off to the corners of the island to tank it away from the ranged. It was important to have the ranged focus down the Spark as it contributed to too much raid damage and also took up space where the melee couldn't steer the boss because of their ground AoE.

As mentioned earlier, throughout the fight active volcanoes spawn periodically. They put a stacking debuff on the raid that increases fire damage taken called . This debuff won't stop stacking until the volcanoes are dealt with and they make the damage the raid takes be quite severe as they buff all of it. You can easily wipe if it stacks to high. In addition, he casts time to time which hurts even more with the debuff. Volcanoes also shoot lines of magma across the zone which then flare up and become walls of lava. They hit hard and knock you up in the air, but are easy to avoid.

When Lord Rhyolith transitions into phase two after dipping to a low enough percentage, his model changes and the tank must pick him up. He also gains an Immolation aura similar to the one the Spark adds had. This ticks for a default 8,500 and affects the whole raid. However, if he has Molten Armor stacks, he will hit for more. If you recall, he gained these stacks in exchange for losing Obsidan Armor ones and they are removed whenever he casts things. Ideally, you don't want it to be on him when you phase transistion if possible so try to time it when you push him into phase two (i.e. wait for him to summon a spark or cast Flame Stomp before you do the final percentage). This is the entire rest of the phase--dealing with the damage from his AoE and burning him down before it overwhelms your healers.

Overall, it was a fun fight and more dynamic than usual. Steering him took a few wipes to learn and it was still easy to make a mistake on. The fight wouldn't be hard to PUG, either, if the melee who were assigned to steering him knew what to do. As such, he seemed significantly easier than the fight from yesterday and way less of a gear check. We also have some more gorgeous screenshots up to show you Firelands below.

Комментарий от Jairbear

Комментарий от Orranis

Комментарий от Raemsie

Woah. Sounds AMAZING. I can't wait. But, it would make raiding even less puggable, since most pugs won't be able to figure out the legs...

Комментарий от Ashelia

on 2011-05-12T23:06:10-05:00

I watched it on <vodka>'s channel. Very well done fight.

I had A LOT of fun with this one... the spider was a lot less fun and they cut the testing time short. This one was easy to learn but hard to master and provided a lot of fun things for a healer to watch out for.

Комментарий от LordAnthrax74

on 2011-05-12T23:35:21-05:00

Now all they need is a Hokey-Pokey achievement for successfully turning him in sequential circles. :D

Комментарий от samaxis

on 2011-05-13T00:20:31-05:00

Now all they need is a Hokey-Pokey achievement for successfully turning him in sequential circles. :D

You sir are my hero for posting this.

Комментарий от marrakoosh

on 2011-05-13T04:55:04-05:00

Absolutely love the sound of this fight. Especially as a rogue who will inevitably get to control his walking! Haha.

Комментарий от OverZealous

on 2011-05-13T08:29:39-05:00

Love the way they've designed this fight, I imagine it'll be a @#$%^ on heroic, too!

Комментарий от Interest

on 2011-05-13T09:49:36-05:00

This ticks for a default 8,500 and effects the whole raid.

affects -- =D.

I wish I was in a raiding guild now...

Комментарий от RantsiProduction

on 2011-05-13T10:13:35-05:00

Cant wait to try this out when this goes live , looked so awesome encounter that i almost jizzed!

Комментарий от perculia

on 2011-05-13T12:59:24-05:00

This sounds like a lot of fun. I can't wait to control the movement as a rogue!

Комментарий от Aliok

on 2011-05-13T19:30:40-05:00

I'm somewhat saddened to see the name change. I was so looking forward to calling out over vent, "Deeps on antichrist's left leg!"

Комментарий от Kimbaras

on 2011-05-14T11:59:41-05:00

I'm somewhat saddened to see the name change. I was so looking forward to calling out over vent, "Deeps on antichrist's left leg!"

I think they've changed the name for this...

Комментарий от Declaron

on 2011-05-14T23:23:24-05:00

I'm somewhat saddened to see the name change. I was so looking forward to calling out over vent, "Deeps on antichrist's left leg!"

Precisely the reason they have changed the name i imagine.

(for those who dont know the bosses original name was Anthrycist (An-Thry-Cist) but is easily misread as Antichrist)

Комментарий от Glowyrm

on 2011-05-14T23:43:23-05:00

Blizzard was right when they said they were going for quality over quantity with Firelands. I'm certain this is just a taste of more epic and fresh fights to come.

From looking through Ragnaros datamining, that fight will be ridiculously awesome. So far I think they have done a great job with Firelands, can't wait to see it all.

Комментарий от khoros

on 2011-05-15T06:02:37-05:00

i would have lolled if the named remained the same, i loved it :P murdering the antichrist sounds somewhat epic no?

Комментарий от Tuarceata

on 2011-05-16T06:20:47-05:00

This sounds like a mechanic from the Pelagia fight in Shadow of the Colossus.